As UP Entertainment celebrates its 20th anniversary, founder and CEO Charley Humbard attributed the independent network’s success to finding the “right balance” in its ecosystem of SVODs and linear channels.
After launching with one cable channel — the Gospel Music Channel — in October 2004, UP Entertainment, which aims to be a destination for uplifting content, has grown its portfolio to include three cable channels, three SVOD services and two FAST channels. With the company’s assets, UP Entertainment series can air on anywhere from three to five places within the company’s ecosystem, including being dubbed on Cine Romántico, a FAST channel dedicated to romantic films in Spanish.
“There’s a little bit of safety in numbers these days, so we created our own kind of partnerships, both in creating a bundle as well as creating a group of cable networks that are now under us,” Humbard told TheWrap for our Office With a View interview series, adding that “content is still king.”
“I know a lot of the folks out there are having a tough time because they watch their cable business really go down, and they haven’t really figured out, if they don’t have an SVOD, where do they go? A lot of people are producing for their SVOD, but they’re spending way too much for the model to work … You’ve got to find the right balance in this changing business.”
For Humbard, finding the “right balance” goes hand-in-hand with taking the right amount of risk, which UP Entertainment did by testing in the SVOD space beginning in 2012 before going “full out” in 2015 and growing its profitability from there.
“You can’t take over excessive risk. You’ve got to take risk and get in new platforms where consumers are going, but I think being measured and smart about your business continues to be really important,” Humbard said. “As an independent, we’ve really forged our own path to success. We didn’t stand around and wait to see what was going to happen.”
Below, Humbard outlines how UP Entertainment’s portfolio has shifted the process of content generation, why cable channels are still profitable and his advice for young people aiming to break into the entertainment industry.
How does knowing you’ll be leveraging content across platforms change the process of content creation and roll out?
It’s a decision every time you make something. We do make sure that everything we make fits our SVOD — that window is a little tighter for us as far as content regulations … in that, we want it to be safe for families in our SVOD. We want to be the light on the hill in this case. There’s plenty of dark stuff out there in streaming today, and I think our SVOD wants to stand out in a way that people know it’s dependable for them to go to and get positive content every time. We always make things with that in mind first. It can always air in linear and other places, but that’s the lens we use to really set the kind of stories we want to tell, and how edgy or not edgy, and whatever the subjects may be, it’s really set today by our streamer.
How does your portfolio of cable channels, SVODs and FAST channels make you more equipped to handle the industry slowdown?
I think our real advantage is that we’re unique in the landscape. Netflix does what Netflix does. Disney does what they do. Prime Video’s got their space, and we really have ours as an independent. What we need to do is continue to stay very focused on our audience, serving the 60 million what we call “the UP-siders” who are looking for content that really affirms their values. It’s really about staying in our space, serving our customers the kind of content they can’t get anywhere else.
With concern about declining linear viewership, why do you want to maintain your cable channels?
Our cable channels still represent a lot of our revenue. They represent a lot of our customer interaction and relationship we have, and we have great cable partners, and our cable partners are also, many of them, distributing our streaming services. So in our partnership with our cable operators, it’s really important they continue to get premieres and great content that they’re paying for … for their subscribers, so it’s still a very important part of our business. Sometimes things go to cable first. Sometimes it goes to SVOD first, but we make sure that everybody at the table is fed.
We know that streaming, five years from now, three years from now, is going to be the bulk of our business. We know where it’s going, and we’ve become really good at being a direct-to-consumer company.
How has having demographic-specific channels helped benefit the business?
When you look at 60 million people, it’s not all the same. America today is very diverse. For us to have the ability to serve them with AspireTV, which we started with Magic Johnson, so our Black and urban audiences have the best content in the lifestyle category from them. And Aspire also just started an SVOD that’s carried on Prime right now. That has great potential there, again, to serve people with content that’s positive, that’s commercial free … We have Cine Romántico [for] the Spanish community too, [which is] very family focused. Faith is very important in their house, so clean Spanish romance content really struck a chord … because sometimes the romance content and some of the Spanish networks gets a little risqué, and we try to keep it … so people can feel comfortable watching with their kids, their families and get great entertainment.
What advice would you give young people trying to get into the industry?
It is probably the greatest opportunity there has been to get in, because the industry has diversified so much. There used to just be two or three doors that you could come into our business. You’re either a producer or doing production; you were kind of getting in the network sales-side or marketing. But now, there’s all of those, but they’re multiplied by all these different platforms. There’s some brilliant digital companies we work with out there — platforms that are bringing in people to program there, and that’s different than working in Netflix, that’s different than working in cable, that’s different than working in broadcast. The landscape has exploded as far as opportunities.
I would go into it very open-mind about checking the different pathways to get in. You need to be confident. Now, with AI and everything else coming on, you’ll want a learner, not somebody that knows it all you, because no one knows it all … This is a quality we really focus on our company, is we want people that are servant-minded, somebody that’s really humble, willing to do the work, not have an attitude about it, and really come in and say, “I’m here to do whatever it takes. I want to be part of this team.” If you’re purpose-driven, follow brands like us that are purpose-driven brands. We attract those kind of people.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
